Political, personal and sometimes experimental writing from a lawyer, parent, muso and cat wrangler. Critical security; regulation in the era of disruption; public ethics; child rights; anacruses to arpeggios; and, regardless of the subject, beautiful writing wherever it appears.
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Sunday, September 09, 2007

Androgens Redux

Shortly after the wonder that is a Bear entered our life, I was, you may recall, a complete psycho. A flood of hormones overtook me and I experienced something I can only theorise is nature's way of ensuring that the male gets eaten by the sabre tooth while mum and bub make a getaway. My eyes were a little wild. Beloved hid the larger kitchen implements.

Anyway, 8 months on and I'm (reasonably) sane again. Then a couple of weeks ago there is a discussion, a friend is over and she is talking about her partner who is a little prone to getting into argy bargy and coming away with a red noggin. Lovely chap, may I add... not at all an aggressor, just... prone. Red noggins. Moving along.

The conversation moves onto an incident I'd all but forgotten, where beloved was in our (then small) car when some duelling-banjo trash slammed into her, clearly in the wrong as you tend to be slamming into people from behind, then proceeded to abuse her and accuse her of being at fault.

When she was in fairly late term, extremely obvious, pregnancy.

The fact that there is such subhuman trash scraping its inbred 3 toed feet around our society can sometimes escape you. When it does you relax in the assumption that we've moved on from being chimps thumping each other with rocks. Indeed, when you have no responsibility other than yourself, and are blessed with a quick tongue and fairly good endurance in a chase, you can probably wrangle your way free of almost any situation.

But what if you're on the road and some throwback is threatening violence, and directing it at your wife? Your little daughter?

The lump of offal referred to above didn't actually do this, but the discussion threw some switch that kept me up half the night. I know it will sound like the most regressive male tubthumping, but while being a husband certainly brings out some protective instincts of its own, being the father of a daughter is gut-churningly terrifying when I stop to think about it, and I'm overwhelmed by the sense that I'm not equipped to protect her.

Police said the man and his 32-year-old wife were admiring a silver-coloured Hummer - a large, US-style four-wheel drive - outside Kings car park on Flinders Lane, between Spencer and King streets, about 5.30am (AEST) when they were set upon.The man said "I love your car" before he was attacked by up to six people, with at least one brandishing a metal bar. "The victim was severely beaten and left unconscious," Detective Senior Constable Brett Hampson said.

??!! The perfect crime, they all concluded as they sped away in their SILVER HUMMER. Why, there's 5 in my street alone, they'll never be caught! Moving along...

A dad knows he'll never be some Marvel Comic superhero capable of trussing up all the bad guys then changing back into his suit and dorky glasses. A dad will just be the dork in the suit and glasses. But he hopes, at minimum, that if he has to get eaten one day he'll last long enough to let those he loves escape to higher ground.

Or be able to pull a fallen bookshelf off them, or haul them off the edge of a glacier, or out of a sinking car. OK, that's a bit Marvel-esque. But I'm starting with a modest, simple objective.

My humble aim, for a Bear's first birthday, is to put on 3 kilos of the working stuff. No cardio for me, no samba dancing cross training, no techno yogalates. For me it's leg press, dips, bench, lat pulldowns and a routine that nods to Bulgarian weightlifters. I don't care whether it is noticeable on the aesthetic front, as long as I know I can shove something heavy away from me.